In accordance with new law requiring Massachusetts ride-hail drivers to undergo both private and public vetting, the state has rejected thousands of applicants who made it through the first round of checks, citing causes ranging from dangerous driving and suspended licenses to criminal assault.

Close to 11% of drivers who applied to work with Uber or Lyft in Massachusetts have failed the state's newly mandated background check after having cleared those performed by the companies, the Boston Globe reported yesterday. Under a November 2016 law which required companies to submit driver applications for a second round of public vetting, Massachusetts screened 70,789 drivers for the job and resultingly kicked 8,206 of them to curb, according to stats released by the state's Department of Public Utilities (DPU).

As the Boston Herald noted, the most common reason drivers were rejected was for having a suspended license on their records. An additional 1,559 applicants were turned down for having "a history of violent crime," according to the Herald, while another 51 applicants were deemed to be sex offenders by the state. The added checks also found that over 1,000 applicants had "multiple serious driving offenses," according to the DPU.

The rejected drivers were reportedly let go by the companies following the results this week, through they may apply to appeal the decision. Per state law, Massachusetts-run background checks are able to search considerably further back in drivers' histories than Uber and Lyft, which are restricted to seven years' worth of records.

An Uber application is shown as cars drive by in Washington, DC on March 25, 2015. Uber announced at the time it was ramping up safety in response to rape allegations against a driver in India and growing concerns about background checks for operators of the popular ride-sharing service. (Credit: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images)

Uber and Lyft, which agreed to begin the double-screening process earlier than the law required, have both responded to the news by emphasizing the difference of scope between Massachusetts' background checks and their own. “Under Massachusetts law, Lyft’s commercial background check provider, like all consumer reporting agencies, is legally prevented from looking back further than seven years into driver applicants’ histories,” Lyft said in a statement. “The state does not face the same limitation, which likely explains why a small percentage of our drivers failed the state’s background check while passing ours.”

Uber also criticized the results, arguing that the state's more exacting background checks may well have prevented worthy, hard-working employees from joining the company. “Thousands of people in Massachusetts have lost access to economic opportunities as a result of a screening that includes an unfair and unjust indefinite lookback period," the company said in a statement. "We have an opportunity to repair the current system in the rules process so that people who deserve to work are not denied the opportunity.”

In 2014, district attorneys in San Francisco and Los Angeles launched a civil suit against Uber in response to its "industry leading" background checks, arguing that the company's methods had failed to discover the criminal records of 25 of its drivers. As Ars Technica reported, Uber settled the case in 2016 with $28 million, but somewhat characteristically without admission of wrongdoing.

The Herald reported that Uber's background checks also came into question last summer, after a driver who was accused of raping a 16-year-old passenger "was found to have a lengthy criminal record, including assault and battery on a correctional officer in 2012." Several months ago, a Lyft driver accused of stabbing a passenger was also found to have a drug conviction from back in 2010.

Such events reportedly helped drive efforts to create stronger requirements for screening drivers in Massachusetts, including the creation of the new law last year. Governor Charlie Baker, who's helped steer the state's efforts to better vet ride-hail drivers, commented in a statement, “Massachusetts has set a national standard for driver safety and we look forward to future partnerships with Uber, Lyft and others to grow this innovative industry and support more jobs and economic opportunities for all.”

Uber's suggestion that Massachusetts' heartier, more lengthy background checks could be steamrolling well-intentioned employees by conflating them with serious offenders is not without merit, of course. As TIME has pointed out, the unfair or mis-labeling of workers as sex offenders has happened before (and on a grand scale), and can lead to devastating consequences for such individuals.

Other imbalances in U.S. law could also allow powerful, arms-length decisions regarding applicants' backgrounds to keep good workers down. In states with harsh drug laws and/or statistically testy prosecutors, for example, persons hoping to work with Uber and Lyft or elsewhere may find that years-old minor convictions can rule out many opportunities for rebuilding their careers. Given the long lists of allegations against the ride-hail companies by both passengers and drivers, however, it would seem that something's gotta give when it comes to working with government officials for greater safety all around.

Of course, talented, thoughtful HR and management types have often been known to help make such important hiring decisions with a level of care befitting the ethical burden* to assume responsibility and promote well-being for workers, customers, and communities which belongs to every company--in the sense of both self-realized conglomerates, and groups of individuals who share a journey.

I'm a freelance writer covering tech, media, science, and culture. My background includes the areas of writing, editing, and education, and I received Bachelor and Master of Arts Degrees from the University of British Columbia and California State University, East Bay, resp...